Grow your Audience on Instagram

 "SUCCESS is making those who believed in you look Different"

Nowadays, we all use social media and are equally active in posting our content to grow business or personal brand. For each and every social network, one of the first and most important questions is: How do we grow our audience? Paying for adds or paid promotion is not the only way to grow the audience but there are multiple other ways to gain audience. While working in OTFCoder handling social media marketing, I have learnt about how to gain audience, keep them engaged and market your business via Instagram. 

Instagram is a very open and engaged community. It is easy to talk to strangers, and it is also fairly easy to get strangers to follow you – and to engage with you over your shared photos.

Here are few ways to grow your audience on Instagram which I have personally tried on my Instagram account Life_Its_Spicy_with_Rashi:

1. Do not miss a day of Post- 2-3 posts.

People like seeing stuff from others or else it becomes boring. If you want to grow an audience, you have to publish photos, and you have to publish a lot. Data shows that the most successful accounts on Facebook and Instagram tend to post many more updates than the smaller accounts.

2. Use of appropriate Has-tags

Has-tags play a very important role on all social media. While on Facebook hashtags don’t have much importance – on Instagram hashtags are your key to success. Find the best hashtags for each niche and post on Instagram is a process. Not knowing hashtags can easily kill your chances of Instagram success. The best hashtags are used frequently but not over hyped. 

To find the best hashtags, you should use Instagram and the data it provides when you search for a keyword directly on Instagram. In addition, see what other people from your niche post and what hashtags they use on their most successful images.

3. Consistency is the key

If you want to build an interested, engaged and targeted audience on Instagram you need to keep your posts consistent. Depending on what you want to achieve with your activity, you have to post accordingly.

If you want to get your foot into the fashion industry, you should post about fashion. Your activity is key to building a targeted audience!

4. Like

There are some activities that can get you in front of people from your target audience. Liking other people’s photos is one of them.

I myself have noticed people who repeatedly like some of my images, and I can remember some of these people. This method works even better, if you like more than one photo from one person. Come back after a few days and like another photo and people will start noticing you.

5. Comment

The more thoughtful your comment the more likely it will be noticed. And often people will answer you.

Keep in mind that commenting means more than saying: follow me or like my photo. Commenting should also be more than just saying something generic like „beautiful“ – although this is at least a start.

6. Follow people from your niche

If you want people to follow you, you need to be willing to follow some people, too.

Following some accounts from your niche can help you get those precious first couple of hundred followers. Plus, following these accounts will help you get more interesting images to your feed and make it easier to connect with likes and comments)

7. Promote your Instagram on other social Platforms

If you are really active on other social networks, it is a good idea to ask your followers to follow you on Instagram. You may even want to consider to cross promote your Instagram images to Facebook or Twitter.

8. Ask open-ended question on your posts

The way we have a poll on Facebook, similar to that Instagram uses an algorithm to determine which photos will appear in your feed. Engagement is the key: More likes and comments increase your chance of reaching an audience with your images.

You can actively inspire comments and likes by asking your audience an open ended question which asks for the audience to comment their perspective in comment

A call-to-action at the right place can boost your engagement on your photos

9. Filter your Pictures

Turn your mediocre pics to an interesting by using the available filters on Instagram. And it is true: There almost always is an Instagram filter that will let your photo seem like something special.

Statistics show that filtered photos are

• 21% more likely to be viewed
• 45% more likely to get a comment

10. Quotes to Engage

Quotes always encourage more likes, shares and comments. 

They often work well on Facebook pages, they can inspire millions of retweets on Twitter. It also works well on Instagram too. 

However this trick works better in some niches than in others. You should be careful that you still target the right audience with your quotes. It wont lead you far if you do not post with respect to your target audience

11. Add Location to your Posts

Adding location to the Instagram posts means Geo-tagging. It is a simple way to increase exposure for your image as photos with a location see 79% more engagement than those without.

12. Research

Posting with respect to the targeted audience is more important. Usually motivational quotes work for marketing niche but would not work well for other and doesn't give more engagement

It all depends on so many factors that the simple answer is: try it out and post more of the type of photos and videos that your target audience reacts to.

13. Instagram Stories

One of the interesting feature that Instagram offers is Instagram Stories that vanishes after 24 hours that you can also add as a post. 

Instagram stories get additional exposure while they exist, as they are shown prominent on top of your Instagram feed

14. Tag

When you are posting an interesting post, ask your followers to tag a friend which will help your post reach to more people

A great example is promoting an event or special offer and asking your followers to tag friends for whom this could be of interest.

15.Emojis

Expression is an important aspect on social media. Emojis are still on rise. People use more number of emojis than writing a comment.

They are a great way of showing compassion without having to write lengthy text. Using a variety of emojis helps you get more attention to your Instagram account or some photos you share.

16. Engage

Don’t simply post and then sit back and wait for comments to come. You can actively inspire comments and engagement.

• Ask a question – you can even tag one person and pose the question explicitly to him/her
• Always react to comments and answer them

17. Learn from your audience's responses and likes

On all the social media, waiting for the right moment is not enough, you have to take courage and simply start posting. Once you have posted some photos, take a step back and analyze what works well and what your audience does not like or not respond. 

Instagram being an open and engaged social network, if your activity doesn't receive engagement or new followers then rethink about your activity. Visit the profiles of some people from your niche and take a look how they act on Instagram and how their followers react. Can you learn and copy some of their activity? IF it works for them, it may well work for you!

Always be open learning new things and accepting the feedback. And once your audience grows you will be able to turn marketing your work via Instagram. 

Courtesy: OTFCoder: www.otfcoder.com | https://www.facebook.com/otfcoder/

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